The rise of the Hungarian Communist Party (HCP) to power was rapid. The party was organized in a Moscow hotel on November 4, 1918, when a group of Hungarian prisoners of war and communist sympathizers formed a Central Committee and dispatched members to Hungary to recruit new members, propagate the party's ideas, and radicalize Károlyi's government. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals, and Jews.[1] In the same month, Béla Kun was imprisoned for incitement to riot, but his popularity skyrocketed when a journalist reported that he had been beaten by the police. Kun emerged from jail triumphant when the Social Democrats handed power to a government of "People's Commissars," who proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, 1919.

The communists wrote a temporary constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly; free education, language and cultural rights to minorities; and other rights. It also provided for suffrage for people over eighteen years of age except clergy, "former exploiters," and certain others. Single-list elections took place in April, but members of the parliament were selected indirectly by popularly elected committees. On June 25, Kun's government proclaimed a dictatorship of the proletariat, nationalized industrial and commercial enterprises, and socialized housing, transport, banking, medicine, cultural institutions, and all landholdings of more than 40.5 hectares. Kun undertook these measures even though the Hungarian communists were relatively few, and the support they enjoyed was based far more on their program to restore Hungary's borders than on their revolutionary agenda. Kun hoped that the Russian government would intervene on Hungary's behalf and that a worldwide workers' revolution was imminent. In an effort to secure its rule in the interim, the communist government resorted to arbitrary violence. Revolutionary tribunals ordered about 590 executions, including some for "crimes against the revolution."[1] The government also used "red terror" to expropriate grain from peasants. This violence and the regime's moves against the clergy also shocked many Hungarians.

In late May, Kun attempted to fulfill his promise to restore Hungary's borders. The Hungarian Red Army marched northward and reoccupied part of Slovakia. Despite initial military success, however, Kun withdrew his troops about three weeks later when the French threatened to intervene. This concession shook his popular support. Kun then unsuccessfully turned the Hungarian Red Army on the Romanians, who broke through Hungarian lines on July 30, occupied Budapest, and ousted Kun's Soviet Republic on August 1, 1919. Kun fled first to Vienna and then to the Russian SFSR, where he was executed during Stalin's purge of foreign communists in the late 1930s.

A militantly anti-communist authoritarian government composed of military officers entered Budapest on the heels of the Romanians. A "white terror" ensued that led to the imprisonment, torture, and execution without trial of communists, socialists, Jews, leftist intellectuals, sympathizers with the Károlyi and Kun regimes, and others who threatened the traditional Hungarian political order that the officers sought to reestablish. Estimates placed the number of executions at approximately 5,000.[2] In addition, about 75,000 people were jailed.[2] In particular, the Hungarian right wing and the Romanian forces targeted Jews for retribution. Ultimately, the white terror forced nearly 100,000 people to leave the country, most of them socialists, intellectuals, and middle-class Jews.[2]

The government of Horthy immediately declared null and void all laws and edicts passed by the Karolyi and Kun regimes, in effect renouncing the 1918 armistice. Horthy's authoritarianism and the violent anti-communist backlash resulted in interwar Hungary having one of the quietest political landscapes in Eastern Europe. Later on, when he wished to take out loans from the West, they pressured him into democratic reforms. Horthy only did as much as he absolutely had to, since the Western powers were geographically distant from Hungary and soon turned their attention to matters elsewhere.

Horthy appointed Pál Teleki as Prime Minister in July 1920. His right-wing government set quotas effectively limiting admission of Jews to universities, legalized capital punishment, and to quiet rural discontent, took initial steps towards fulfilling a promise of major land reform by dividing about 385,000 hectares from the largest estates into smallholdings. Teleki's government resigned, however, after the former Austrian Emperor, Charles IV, unsuccessfully attempted to retake Hungary's throne in March 1921. King Charles' return split parties between conservatives who favored a Habsburg restoration and nationalist right-wing radicals who supported election of a Hungarian king. István Bethlen, a nonaffiliated, right-wing member of the parliament, took advantage of this rift by convincing members of the Christian National Union who opposed Karl's re-enthronement to merge with the Smallholders' Party and form a new Party of Unity with Bethlen as its leader. Horthy then appointed Bethlen Prime Minister.

As Prime Minister, Bethlen dominated Hungarian politics between 1921 and 1931. He fashioned a political machine by amending the electoral law, eliminating peasants from the Party of Unity, providing jobs in the bureaucracy to his supporters, and manipulating elections in rural areas. Bethlen restored order to the country by giving the radical counter-revolutionaries payoffs and government jobs in exchange for ceasing their campaign of terror against Jews and leftists. In 1921, Bethlen made a deal with the Social Democrats and trade unions, agreeing, among other things, to legalize their activities and free political prisoners in return for their pledge to refrain from spreading anti-Hungarian propaganda, calling political strikes, and organizing the peasantry. In May 1922, the Party of Unity captured a large parliamentary majority. Charles IV's death, soon after he failed a second time to reclaim the throne in October 1921, allowed the revision of the Treaty of Trianon to rise to the top of Hungary's political agenda. Bethlen's strategy to win the treaty's revision was first to strengthen his country's economy and then to build relations with stronger nations that could further Hungary's goals. Revision of the treaty had such a broad backing in Hungary that Bethlen used it, at least in part, to deflect criticism of his economic, social, and political policies. However, Bethlen's only foreign policy success was a treaty of friendship with Italy in 1927, which had little immediate impact.

In 1920 and 1921, internal chaos racked Hungary. The white terror continued to plague Jews and leftists, unemployment and inflation soared, and penniless Hungarian refugees poured across the border from neighboring countries and burdened the floundering economy. The government offered the population little succor. In January 1920, Hungarian men and women cast the first secret ballots in the country's political history and elected a large counterrevolutionary and agrarian majority to a unicameral parliament. Two main political parties emerged: the socially conservative Christian National Union and the Independent Smallholders' Party, which advocated land reform. In March, the parliament annulled both the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and the Compromise of 1867, and it restored the Hungarian monarchy but postponed electing a king until civil disorder had subsided. Instead, Admiral Miklós Horthy— a former commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian navy—was elected regent and was empowered, among other things, to appoint Hungary's prime minister, veto legislation, convene or dissolve the parliament, and command the armed forces.

Difference between the borders of the Kingdom of Hungary before and after the Treaty of Trianon.

Hungary's signing of the Treaty of Trianon on June 4, 1920, ratified the country's dismemberment, limited the size of its armed forces, and required reparations payments. The territorial provisions of the treaty, which ensured continued discord between Hungary and its neighbors, required the Hungarians to surrender more than two-thirds of their prewar lands. Romania acquired Transylvania; Yugoslavia gained Croatia, Slavonia, and Vojvodina; Slovakia became a part of Czechoslovakia; and Austria also acquired a small piece of pre-war Hungarian territory. Hungary also lost about 60 percent of its pre-war population, and about one-third of the 10 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the diminished homeland.[3] The country's ethnic composition was left almost homogeneous. Hungarians constituted about 90 percent of the population, Germans made up about 6 to 8 percent, and Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, Jews, and other minorities accounted for the remainder.[3]

New international borders separated Hungary's industrial base from its sources of raw materials and its former markets for agricultural and industrial products. Its new circumstances forced Hungary to become a trading nation. Hungary lost 84 percent of its timber resources, 43 percent of its arable land, and 83 percent of its iron ore.[3] Because most of the country's prewar industry was concentrated near Budapest, Hungary retained about 51 percent of its industrial population, 56 percent of its industry, 82 percent of its heavy industry, and 70 percent of its banks.[3]

When Bethlen took office, the government was all-but-bankrupt. Tax revenues were so paltry that he turned to domestic gold and foreign-currency reserves to meet about half of the 1921-22 budget and almost 80 percent of the 1922-23 budget. To improve his country's economic circumstances, Bethlen undertook development of industry. He imposed tariffs on finished goods and earmarked the revenues to subsidize new industries. Bethlen squeezed the agricultural sector to increase cereal exports, which generated foreign currency to pay for imports critical to the industrial sector. Further compounding Hungary's problems was the fact that of its four neighbors, three (Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia) were enemies and kept troops stationed on their borders at all times, even though Hungary had an army of only 20,000 men. The fourth, Austria, was a struggling nation and little more than an economic competitor. In 1924, after the white terror had waned and Hungary had gained admission to the League of Nations (1922), the Bethlen government was able to borrow a 50 million USD loan from the League, which in order to protect its investment placed the country in effective receivership, even placing an American banker, Jeremiah Smith, in charge of the country's finances. Hungary's outcast status had prevented it from obtaining any foreign aid in the immediate postwar period, but by the middle of the 1920s, the British decided to extend the hand of friendship to the losers of World War I. Hungary also obtained sympathy from the United States and Mussolini's Italy. Meanwhile, France and Hungary's neighbors vigorously objected.

By the late 1920s, Bethlen's policies had brought order to the economy. The number of factories increased by about 66 percent, inflation subsided, and the national income climbed 20 percent. However, the apparent stability was supported by a rickety framework of constantly revolving foreign credits and high world grain prices; therefore, Hungary remained undeveloped in comparison with the wealthier western European countries, as most of the foreign loans went for non-productive purposes such as graft, expanding bureaucracy, and monumental public works projects. Agricultural products were subject to unstable prices and the vagaries of the weather. Furthermore, tariffs were commonplace in America and Europe during the 1920s, which frequently made it difficult to export. Hungary was no exception and liberally employed trade barriers to protect its manufacturing base. Exports also had to pass through Hungary's neighbors to reach the West, and as noted above, all but one was hostile.

Despite economic progress, the workers' standard of living remained poor, and consequently the working class never gave Bethlen its political support. The labor movement had never developed in pre-World War I Hungary the way it did in Austria, and the Horthy government remained resolutely opposed to organized labor or social reforms. There was no minimum wage or any sort of labor laws in Hungary almost until the start of World War II, and wages were further undercut by peasants flocking into Budapest who were willing to work for almost nothing. On the whole, workers fared more poorly in interwar Hungary then they had before World War I. The peasants were even worse off than the working class. In the 1920s, about 60 percent of the peasants were either landless or were cultivating plots too small to provide a decent living. Real wages for agricultural workers remained below prewar levels, and the peasants had practically no political voice. Moreover, once Bethlen had consolidated his power, he ignored calls for land reform. The industrial sector failed to expand fast enough to provide jobs for all the peasants and university graduates seeking work. Most peasants lingered in the villages, and in the 1930s Hungarians in rural areas were extremely dissatisfied. Hungary's foreign debt ballooned as Bethlen expanded the bureaucracy to absorb the university graduates who, if left idle, might have threatened civil order. This was because Hungary, like the rest of Eastern Europe, had an educational system primarily focused on the liberal arts and law rather than science, engineering, or other practical subjects that might have helped the country's development. University graduates mostly sought employment in the bureaucracy, where they were guaranteed an easy, secure job. When they could not obtain work, either because they lacked useful skills or because the swollen bureaucracy had no openings available, they would invariably blame their bad luck on Jews. This would contribute to an anti-Semitism in Hungary that would ultimately have tragic consequences.

Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in the United States and the beginning of the Great Depression, world grain prices plummeted, and the framework supporting Hungary's economy buckled. Hungary's earnings from grain exports declined as prices and volume dropped, tax revenues fell, foreign credit sources dried up, and short-term loans were called in. The Hungarian national bank depleted its supply of precious metals and foreign currency during a period of a few weeks in 1931. Hungary sought financial relief from the League of Nations, which insisted on a program of rigid fiscal belt-tightening, resulting in increased unemployment. The peasants reverted to subsistence farming. Industrial production rapidly dropped, and businesses went bankrupt as domestic and foreign demand evaporated. Government workers lost their jobs or suffered severe pay cuts. By 1933 about 18 percent of Budapest's citizens lived in poverty. Unemployment leapt from 5 percent in 1928 to almost 36 percent by 1933.

As the standard of living dropped, the political mood of the country shifted further towards the right. Bethlen resigned without warning amid national turmoil in August 1931. His successor, Gyula Károlyi, failed to quell the crisis. Horthy then appointed a reactionary demagogue, Gyula Gömbös, but only after Gömbös agreed to maintain the existing political system, to refrain from calling elections before the parliament's term had expired, and to appoint several Bethlen supporters to head key ministries. Gömbös publicly renounced the vehement antisemitism he had espoused earlier, and his party and government included some Jews.

Gömbös's appointment marked the beginning of the radical right's ascendancy in Hungarian politics, which lasted with few interruptions until 1945. The radical right garnered its support from medium and small farmers, former refugees from Hungary's lost territories, and unemployed civil servants, army officers, and university graduates. Gömbös advocated a one-party government, revision of the Treaty of Trianon, withdrawal from the League of Nations, anti-intellectualism, and social reform. He assembled a political machine, but his efforts to fashion a one-party state and fulfill his reform platform were frustrated by a parliament composed mostly of Bethlen's supporters and by Hungary's creditors, who forced Gömbös to follow conventional policies in dealing with the economic and financial crisis. The 1935 elections gave Gömbös more solid support in the parliament, and he succeeded in gaining control of the ministries of finance, industry, and defense and in replacing several key military officers with his supporters. In September 1936, Gömbös informed German officials that he would establish a Nazi-like, one-party government in Hungary within two years, but he died in October without realizing this goal.

In foreign affairs, Gömbös led Hungary towards close relations with Italy and Germany; in fact, Gömbös coined the term Axis, which was later adopted by the German-Italian military alliance. Soon after his appointment, Gömbös visited Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and gained his support for revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Later, Gömbös became the first foreign head of government to visit German chancellor Adolf Hitler. For a time, Hungary profited handsomely, as Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany that drew Hungary's economy out of depression but made Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and markets. In 1928, Germany had accounted for 19.5 percent of Hungary's imports and 11.7 percent of its exports; by 1939 the figures were 52.5 percent and 52.2 percent, respectively.[4] Hungary's annual rate of economic growth from 1934 to 1940 averaged 10.8 percent.[4] The number of workers in industry doubled in the ten years after 1933, and the number of agricultural workers dropped below 50 percent for the first time in the country's history.[4]

Hitler's assistance did not come without a price. After 1938, the Führer used promises of additional territories, economic pressure, and threats of military intervention to pressure the Hungarians into supporting his policies, including those related to Europe's Jews, which encouraged Hungary's antisemites. The percentage of Jews in business, finance, and the professions far exceeded the percentage of Jews in the overall population. After the depression struck, antisemites made the Jews scapegoats for Hungary's economic plight.

Hungary's Jews suffered the first blows of this renewed anti-Semitism during the government of Gömbös's successor, Kálmán Darányi, who fashioned a coalition of conservatives and reactionaries and dismantled Gömbös's political machine. After Horthy publicly dashed hopes of land reform, discontented right-wingers took to the streets denouncing the government and baiting the Jews. Darányi's government attempted to appease the anti-Semites and the Nazis by proposing and passing the first so-called Jewish Law, which set quotas limiting Jews to 20 percent of the positions in certain businesses and professions.[citation needed] The law failed to satisfy Hungary's anti-Semitic radicals, however, and when Darányi tried to appease them again, Horthy unseated him in 1938. The regent then appointed the ill-starred Béla Imrédy, who drafted a second, harsher Jewish Law before political opponents forced his resignation in February 1939 by presenting documents showing that Imrédy's own grandfather was a Jew.

Statue of Pál Teleki

Imrédy's downfall led to Pál Teleki's return to the prime minister's office. Teleki dissolved some of the fascist parties but did not alter the fundamental policies of his predecessors. He undertook a bureaucratic reform and launched cultural and educational programs to help the rural poor. But Teleki also oversaw passage of the second Jewish Law, which broadened the definition of "Jewishness," cut the quotas on Jews permitted in the professions and in business, and required that the quotas be attained by the hiring of Gentiles or the firing of Jews.

Until World War I, striking inequalities distinguished the distribution of wealth, power, privilege, and opportunity among social groups. The various social strata had different codes of behavior and distinctive dress, speech, and manners. Respect showed to persons varied according to the source of their wealth. Wealth derived from possession of land was valued more highly than that coming from trade or banking. The country was predominantly rural, and landownership was the central factor in determining the status and prestige of most families. In some of the middle and upper strata of society, noble birth was also an important criterion as was, in some cases, the holding of certain occupations. An intricate system of ranks and titles distinguished the various social stations. Hereditary titles designated the aristocracy and gentry. Persons who had achieved positions of eminence, whether or not they were of noble birth, often received nonhereditary titles from the state. The gradations of rank derived from titles had great significance in social intercourse and in the relations between the individual and the state. Among the rural population, which consisted largely of peasants and which made up the overwhelming majority of the country's people, distinctions derived from such factors as the size of a family's landholding; whether the family owned the land and hired help to work it, owned and worked the land itself, or worked for others; and family reputation. The prestige and respect accompanying landownership were evident in many facets of life in the countryside, from finely shaded modes of polite address, to special church seating, to selection of landed peasants to fill public offices.

Landowners, wealthy bankers, aristocrats and gentry, and various commercial leaders made up the elite. Together, these groups accounted for only 13 percent of the population.[citation needed] Between 10 and 18 percent of the population consisted of the petite bourgeoisie and the petty gentry, various government officials, intellectuals, retail store owners, and well-to-do professionals.[citation needed] More than two-thirds of the remaining population lived in varying degrees of poverty.[citation needed] Their only real chance for upward mobility lay in becoming civil servants, but such advancement was difficult because of the exclusive nature of the education system. The industrial working class was growing, but the largest group remained the peasantry, most of whom had too little land or none at all.

Although the inter-war years witnessed considerable cultural and economic progress in the country, the social structure changed little. A great chasm remained between the gentry, both social and intellectual, and the rural "people." Jews held a place of prominence in the country's economic, social, and political life. They constituted the bulk of the middle class. They were well assimilated, worked in a variety of professions, and were of various political persuasions.

1.
History of Hungary
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For the history of the area before this period, see Pannonian basin before Hungary. The oldest archaeological site in Hungary is Vértesszőlős, where palaeolithic Oldowan pebble tools, the Roman Empire conquered territory west of the Danube River between 35 and 9 BC. From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century AD, Pannonia, among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila the Hun in 435 AD. Attila was regarded in past centuries as a ruler of the Hungarians. They entered what is now Hungary in the 7th century AD, the Avar Khaganate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure, and the Franks under Charlemagne managed to defeat the Avars to end their 250-year rule. Árpád was the leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood and he led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. Between 895 and 902 the whole area of the Carpathian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians, an early Hungarian state was formed in this territory in 895. The military power of the nation allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns, Prince Géza of the Árpád dynasty, who ruled only part of the united territory, was the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes. He aimed to integrate Hungary into Christian Western Europe by rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social models, Géza established a dynasty by naming his son Vajk as his successor. This decision was contrary to the dominant tradition of the time to have the eldest surviving member of the ruling family succeed the incumbent. By ancestral right, Prince Koppány, the oldest member of the dynasty, should have claimed the throne, Koppány did not relinquish his ancestral rights without a fight. After Gézas death in 997, Koppány took up arms, the rebels claimed to represent the old political order, ancient human rights, tribal independence and pagan belief. Stephen won a victory over his uncle Koppány and had him executed. Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I, Stephen was the son of Géza and thus a descendant of Árpád. Stephen was crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary in the first day of 1000 AD in the city of Esztergom. Pope Sylvester II conferred on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full authority over bishoprics. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power by eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow the old traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire. Then he initiated sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a feudal state, complete with forced Christianization

2.
Pannonia
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Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Julius Pokorny believes the name Pannonia is derived from Illyrian, from the Proto-Indo-European root *pen-, swamp, water, the Ionian Danube fleet reached as far as Boio-Aria, populated until the late 8th century CE by Celts and Slavs under Aryan rulers. Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum and he also gives us some dramaticised description of its composition, in which the close proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them. But even he—if the passage in question is not an interpolated marginal gloss—is subject to the legends of the gloomy forest and he mentions unusual birds, which have feathers that shine like fires at night. Medieval bestiaries named these birds the Ercinee, the first inhabitants of this area known to history were the Pannonii, a group of Indo-European tribes akin to Illyrians. From the 4th century BC, it was invaded by various Celtic tribes, little is heard of Pannonia until 35 BC, when its inhabitants, allies of the Dalmatians, were attacked by Augustus, who conquered and occupied Siscia. The country was not, however, definitively subdued by the Romans until 9 BC, when it was incorporated into Illyricum, the frontier of which was thus extended as far as the Danube. After the rebellion was crushed in AD9, the province of Illyricum was dissolved, the date of the division is unknown, most certainly after AD20 but before AD50. The proximity of dangerous barbarian tribes necessitated the presence of a number of troops. Some time between the years 102 and 107, between the first and second Dacian wars, Trajan divided the province into Pannonia Superior, and Pannonia Inferior. According to Ptolemy, these divisions were separated by a line drawn from Arrabona in the north to Servitium in the south, later, the whole country was sometimes called the Pannonias. Pannonia Superior was under the legate, who had formerly administered the single province. Pannonia Inferior was at first under a praetorian legate with a single legion as the garrison, after Marcus Aurelius, it was under a consular legate, the frontier on the Danube was protected by the establishment of the two colonies Aelia Mursia and Aelia Aquincum by Hadrian. In the 4th-5th century, one of the dioceses of the Roman Empire was known as the Diocese of Pannonia. It had its capital in Sirmium and included all four provinces that were formed from historical Pannonia, as well as the provinces of Dalmatia, following the Migrations Period in the middle of the 5th century, Pannonia was ceded to the Huns by Theodosius II. After the collapse of the Hunnic empire in 454, large numbers of Ostrogoths were settled by Emperor Marcian in the province as foederati, afterwards, it was again invaded by the Avars in the 560s, the Slavs, who first settled c. This language and the culture became extinct with the arrival of the Magyars. The native settlements consisted of pagi containing a number of vici, the cities and towns in Pannonia were, The country was fairly productive, especially after the great forests had been cleared by Probus and Galerius

3.
Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin
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Before the arrival of the Hungarians, three early medieval powers, the First Bulgarian Empire, East Francia and Moravia had fought each other for control of the Carpathian Basin. They occasionally hired Hungarian horsemen as soldiers, therefore, the Hungarians who dwelt on the Pontic steppes east of the Carpathians were familiar with their future homeland when their land-taking started. The Hungarian conquest started in the context of a late or small migration of peoples, contemporary sources attest that the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Mountains following a joint attack in 894 or 895 by the Pechenegs and Bulgarians against them. They first took control over the lowlands east of the river Danube and they exploited internal conflicts in Moravia and annihilated this state sometime between 902 and 906. The Hungarians strengthened their control over the Carpathian Basin by defeating a Bavarian army in a battle fought at Brezalauspurc on July 4,907 and they launched a series of plundering raids between 899 and 955 and also targeted the Byzantine Empire between 943 and 971. However, they settled in the Basin and established a Christian monarchy. Byzantine authors were the first to record these events, nearly contemporary narration can be read in the Continuation of the Chronicle by George the Monk. However, De Administrando Imperio provides the most detailed account and it was compiled under the auspices of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in 951 or 952. Works written by clergymen in the states of the Carolingian Empire narrate events closely connected to the conquest. The Annals of Fulda which ends in 901 is the earliest among them, a letter from Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg to Pope John IX in 900 also refers to the conquering Hungarians, but it is often regarded as a fake. Abbot Regino of Prüm who compiled his World Chronicle around 908 sums up his knowledge on the Hungarians in an entry under the year 889. Another valuable source is Bishop Liutprand of Cremonas Antapodosis from around 960, Aventinus, a 16th-century historian provides information not known from other works, which suggests that he used now-lost sources. An Old Church Slavonic compilation of Lives of saints preserved an account on the Bulgarian-Byzantine war of 894–896. Similarly late manuscripts offer the text of the Russian Primary Chronicle and it provides information based on earlier Byzantine and Moravian sources. The Hungarians themselves initially preserved the memory of the events in the form of folk songs. The earliest local chronicle was compiled in the late 11th century and it exists now in more than one variant, its original version several times extended and rewritten during the Middle Ages. For instance, the 14th-century Illuminated Chronicle contains texts from the 11th-century chronicle, an anonymous authors Gesta Hungarorum, written before 1200, is the earliest extant local chronicle. However, this most misleading example of all the early Hungarian texts contains much information that cannot be confirmed based on contemporaneous sources, around 1283 Simon of Kéza, a priest at the Hungarian royal court wrote the next surviving chronicle

4.
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
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The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of the many European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire, Czar Nicholas I answered, and sent a 200,000 men strong army with 80,000 auxiliary forces. Finally, the joint army of Russian and Austrian forces defeated the Hungarian forces, after the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law. The anniversary of the Revolutions outbreak,15 March, is one of Hungarys three national holidays, the Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, even after the Austrian Empire was created in 1804. The administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire, Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the imperial government. The country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary - located in Pozsony and later in Pest -, ignác Martinovics worked as a secret agent for the new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, until 1792. In another of his works, Catechism of People and Citizens, he argued that citizens tend to oppose any repression and he also became a Freemason, and was in favour of the adoption of a federal republic in Hungary. As a member of the Hungarian Jacobins, he was considered a forerunner of revolutionary thought by some. He was in charge of stirring up a revolt against the nobility among the Hungarian serfs, for these subversive acts, Francis II, the Holy Roman Emperor, dismissed Martinovics and his boss, Ferenc Gotthardi, the former chief of the secret police. He was executed, together with six other prominent Jacobins, in May 1795, the Diet of Hungary had not convened since 1811. The frequent diets held in the part of the reign occupied themselves with little else but war subsidies. In the latter years of Francis I. the dark shadow of Metternichs policy of stability fell across the kingdom, but beneath the surface a strong popular current was beginning to run in a contrary direction. Hungarian society, not unaffected by western Liberalism, but without any help from abroad, was preparing for the future emancipation. In 1825 Emperor Francis II convened the Diet in response to growing concerns amongst the Hungarian nobility about taxes and this – and the reaction to the reforms of Joseph II – started what is known as the Reform Period. But the Nobles still retained their privileges of paying no taxes, the influential Hungarian politician Count István Széchenyi recognized the need to bring the country the advances of the more developed West European countries, such as England. It was an attack upon the constitution which, to use the words of István Széchenyi. In 1823, when the powers were considering joint action to suppress the revolution in Spain. The county assemblies instantly protested against this act, and Francis I was obliged, at the diet of 1823

5.
Austria-Hungary
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The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, and one region, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown. It was ruled by the House of Habsburg, and constituted the last phase in the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal, Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states. Austria-Hungary was a state and one of the worlds great powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908. The annexation of Bosnia also led to Islam being recognized as a state religion due to Bosnias Muslim population. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I and it was already effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The realms full, official name was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship, one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, however, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government, the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and later in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. The Hungarian government and Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, despite Austria and Hungary sharing a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. Since the beginnings of the union, the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could preserve its separated. After the revolution of 1848–1849, the Hungarian budget was amalgamated with the Austrian, from 1527 to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which separated her from the other parts of the Habsburg-ruled territories

6.
Hungarian Soviet Republic
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The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Hungarian Republic of Councils was a short-lived independent communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I. It was the successor of the Hungarian Democratic Republic and lasted only from 21 March to 1 August 1919, the state was led by Béla Kun and was not recognized by France, the UK or the US. It was the second socialist state in the world to be formed after the October Revolution in Russia brought the Bolsheviks to power. De facto, the Hungarian Soviet Republic didnt have an independent foreign policy, it had to follow and fulfill the commands, instructions, the Hungarian Republic of Councils had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the evolving Czechoslovakia. It collapsed on 1 August 1919 when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to the Romanian forces, as the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed in 1918, an independent Hungarian Democratic Republic was formed after the Aster Revolution. Official proclamation of the republic was on 16 November 1918 and its president became Mihály Károlyi, Károlyi struggled to establish the governments authority and to control the country. Led by Béla Kun, the first members returned to Hungary and it recruited members while propagating partys ideas, radicalising many Social Democrats in the process. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals, the Communists came to power as the only group with an organised fighting force, promising Hungary would be able to defend its territory without conscription. Kun founded a newspaper, called Vörös Újság and concentrated on attacking Károlyis liberal government, during the following months, the Communist Partys power-base rapidly expanded. Their supporters began to stage aggressive demonstrations against the media, in one crucial incident, a demonstration turned violent on 20 February and the protesters attacked the editorial office of the Social Democrats official paper, called Népszava. In the ensuing chaos, seven people—including policemen—were killed, the government arrested the leaders of the Communist party, banned Vörös Újság and closed down the partys buildings. The arrests were particularly violent, with police officers openly beating the communists and this resulted in a wave of public sympathy for the Communist Party. On 1 March, Vörös Újság was given permission to again. The leaders were permitted to receive guests in their prison, which allowed them to keep up with political affairs, on 20 March, Károlyi announced that Dénes Berinkey government would resign. Mihály Károlyi resigned on 21 March, president Károlyi, who was an outspoken anti-Communist, was not informed about the fusion of the communist and social democrat parties. Thus, while believing to have appointed a social democratic government, on 21 March, he informed the Council of Ministers that only Social Democrats could form a new government, as they were the party with the highest public support. Béla Kun and his communist friends were released from the Margit Ring prison on the night of 20 March,1919. Liberal president Károlyi was arrested by the new communist regime on the first day, later he could manage to escape

7.
Hungary in World War II
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During World War II, the Kingdom of Hungary was a member of the Axis powers. In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy, Hungary benefited territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czechoslovak Republic, the Slovak Republic, in 1940, under pressure from Germany, Hungary joined the Axis. In 1941, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia, while waging war against the Soviet Union, Hungary engaged in armistice negotiations with the United States and the United Kingdom. Hitler discovered this betrayal and, in March 1944, German forces occupied Hungary, when Soviet forces began threatening Hungary, an armistice was signed between Hungary and the USSR by Regent Miklós Horthy. Soon after, Horthys son was kidnapped by German commandos and Horthy was forced to revoke the armistice, the Regent was then deposed from power, while Hungarian fascist leader Ferenc Szálasi established a new government, with German backing. In 1945, Hungarian and German forces in Hungary were defeated by invading Soviet armies, approximately 300,000 Hungarian soldiers and more than 600,000 civilians died during World War II, including among them at least 450,000 Jews and 28,000 Roma. Many cities were damaged, most notably the capital of Budapest, from the start of the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, Jews and Roma were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. By the end of the war, the toll was between 450,000 and 606,000 Hungarian Jews and an estimated 28,000 Hungarian Roma. Hungarys borders were returned to their status after its surrender. Unlike the ethnic Germans or Italians, however, ethnic Hungarians were not subject to expulsions from the countries in which they were residing after the war. In Hungary, the joint effect of the Great Depression and the Treaty of Trianon resulted in shifting the mood of the country towards the right. In 1932, the regent Miklós Horthy appointed a new Prime Minister, Gömbös was identified with the Hungarian National Defence Association. He led Hungarian international policy towards closer cooperation with Germany and started an effort to assimilate minorities in Hungary, Gömbös advocated a number of social reforms, one-party government, revision of the Treaty of Trianon, and Hungarys withdrawal from the League of Nations. The result of the 1935 elections gave Gömbös more solid support in parliament and he succeeded in gaining control of the ministries of finance, industry, and defense and in replacing several key military officers with his supporters. In October 1936, he died due to kidney problems without realizing his goals, Hungary used its relationship with Germany to attempt to revise the Treaty of Trianon. In 1938, Hungary openly repudiated the treatys restrictions on its armed forces, in 1935, a Hungarian fascist party, the Arrow Cross Party, led by Ferenc Szálasi was founded. Gömbös successor, Kálmán Darányi, attempted to appease both Nazis and Hungarian antisemites by passing the First Jewish Law, which set quotas limiting Jews to 20% of positions in several professions

8.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
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Though leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSRs forces drove out Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II. The revolt began as a student demonstration, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building, calling out on the using a van with loudspeakers. A student delegation, entering the building to try to broadcast the students demands, was detained. When the delegations release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police from within the building, one student died and was wrapped in a flag and held above the crowd. This was the start of the revolution, as the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital. The revolt spread quickly across Hungary and the government collapsed, thousands organised into militias, battling the ÁVH and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were executed or imprisoned and former political prisoners were released and armed. Radical impromptu workers councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working Peoples Party, a new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact, and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return, after announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country, the Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, mass arrests and denunciations continued for months thereafter. By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition, public discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for more than 30 years. Since the thaw of the 1980s, it has been a subject of intense study, at the inauguration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 1989,23 October was declared a national holiday. During World War II Hungary was a member of the Axis powers, allied with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Romania, in 1941, the Hungarian military participated in the occupation of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Red Army was able to back the Hungarian and other Axis invaders. Fearing invasion, the Hungarian government began negotiations with the Allies. These ended when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the country and set up its own pro-Axis regime, both Hungarian and German forces stationed in Hungary were subsequently defeated when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1945. Towards the end of World War II, the Soviet Army occupied Hungary, immediately after World War II, Hungary was a multiparty democracy, and elections in 1945 produced a coalition government under Prime Minister Zoltán Tildy